“I can see in the dark,” Ehecatl muttered. Heads turned. “Jaguar warrior, remember? We have certain sorceries we don’t share with outsiders. Let me drive, ben Maor.”
“One of my spirits can let me see in the dark, too,” Trennus volunteered, sounding apologetic. “Doesn’t help the rest of you, though.”
“Have you ever tried having her help other people?” Sigrun asked.
“It won’t hurt to ask, I suppose.” Trennus pulled one of his amulets out, and murmured very softly for a moment. Adam could just barely hear the word Saraid . . . and then slammed on the brakes as, impossibly, a glowing white hind walked out into the road ahead of them.
The truck behind them almost slammed into their rear, and Adam swore under his breath, and moved out of his seat, trading places with Ehecatl, muttering, “A little warning next time, Matrugena—”
“She’s nervous.” Trennus hesitated. “Do you object to letting her touch your mind, ben Maor? Or should I leave you out of this, assuming it works?”
Adam gritted his teeth. “I want to say no, but it would be really stupid to refuse,” he managed, after a moment, as Ehecatl restarted the motorcar.
The spirit delicately leaped up onto the hood as the car moved ahead, and for a moment, all Adam could see were the prancing, dancing legs of a deer . . . and then the doe’s head slid through the roof, and huge, wide, faintly luminescent eyes stared directly into his. Oh, my lord. This is really not what I signed up for . . . .
. . . and then the darkness around him simply peeled back. It wasn’t as if it were daylight, no. But he could see everything now in monochrome. Shades of gray. His companion’s faces appeared crafted of marble. The road was a path of silver; the trees, sculptures in steel and alabaster. His heart raced as if he’d just sprinted a mile, however, and he released an explosive breath, grateful that he’d moved to the center of the seat to let Ehecatl drive. He might have bent the steering wheel in his moment of acute panic.
“Very nice,” Kanmi muttered, under his breath. “Better than using a gravitic pulse as radar. That, I have to ping out constantly, and no one else can understand it.”
Sigrun, to Adam’s surprise, reached over and actually put a hand on his forearm. “Not so bad, is it?”
“Not bad at all,” he agreed, tightly, and edged the car forward at a better clip, but tension still fairly sang in the air. “What did you have to promise for it, Matrugena?”
“Your first-born,” Trennus replied, his tone mild.
Adam froze, just for a moment. “What?”
Kanmi barked with laughter. Trennus ran a hand through his braids, laughing sheepishly. “Oh, come on. I can’t promise anything on anyone else’s behalf. It’s an energy or experience exchange. In this case, I have to burn some sugar for her later, or eat raw honey on her behalf.” Trennus shrugged. “It’s a minor task for a minor service, nothing more.”
After a moment, Adam changed the subject, deliberately, “Is it just me,” he said, “or is this road going straight northeast?”
“About fifteen degrees east of truth north,” Trennus supplied.
Everyone looked at him. “I told you, I really can’t get lost,” the Britannian noted, sounding embarrassed. “I read up on the site before we came here. The local archaeologists want to make it out to be the same angle as the sun’s in summer, to account for planting, or orienting the entire city towards a mountain not even visible from here . . . . it couldn’t possibly be that the buildings are aligned with the ley-lines here.” His tone became dry. “Gauls and Picts were not the only ones to notice their existence and make use of them, after all.”
That got a brief laugh from everyone in the vehicle, and then they were actually approaching the site, itself, visible in spirit-vision as silvery shapes that blocked the sky and the stars, all stepped terraces and sloping ramps. “That one,” Kanmi muttered, pointing, and Adam could see it was the largest pyramid present . . . and had had a sixty-foot-tall steel mast, like the one they’d seen at the ‘ley-station’ in Tikal, added atop it.
“I wonder why none of the archaeologists have objected to the site’s use.” That, from Trennus.
“Do you really think that any of the ones who objected are still alive?” Kanmi’s voice was cynical, as always.
Adam pulled the car to a halt, and they all stepped out. “Underground, eh?” he asked, trying not to let his unhappiness with that show. Underground made him think of ghul. “I expect it’s a tomb, too?”
“Probably in part,” Sigrun agreed, softly. “I’m not happy with this either, Adam. Underground, I’m cut off from the sky. But with luck, they might not be down there right now. We might be able to investigate at our leisure.”
“Yes. But when have we ever been that lucky before?”
Ehecatl looked around at them all, and said, quietly, “I’ll scout ahead. Eagle warriors?” He looked past the lictors to the five Nahautl soldiers accompanying them. “Follow behind the others. Watch our backs.” He shimmered into invisibility, and Adam could barely hear the scrape of his soft-soled boots at the Jaguar warrior slipped off ahead of them, into the gray-tinged night.
It took a few minutes for Ehecatl to find the access tunnel’s entry point; he padded back to the rest of them and whispered, “Guards. Three of them. This will need to be quick, and quiet.”
“I’ll go with you,” Adam murmured in response, and glanced at the others. Quick, Sigrun could do. Quiet, not so much. But quiet was a specialty of his from his days in the JDF. “Matrugena?”
They closed on the guards, each of whom was armed with a derringer and a knife, and Ehecatl circled around behind the right-most, just as Adam circled around behind his own target. He timed his steps carefully, reached out, and snaked his arms around the man’s shoulders and throat. Caught his chin with his right hand, and lifting up and around, using his left hand on the man’s shoulder as a counter, snapped his neck, and then followed the body to the ground, easing the man down. He kept one hand over the mouth, as he did, just in case there was enough consciousness left to cry out, and looked up in time to see Ehecatl emerge from invisibility behind his own man, one hand clamped over the target’s mouth, the edge of his obsidian blade flaring briefly to life with some sort of magic, and then the knife slashed the carotid artery, blood spurting everywhere.
Then he heard a surprised yelp from the third guard, and spun, ready to help Trennus, only to see something that made his stomach turn. Trennus was holding the man down on the ground, pinned, and pushing him into the earth, which was roiling and bubbling viscously as it swallowed him. Trennus was entombing the man at the same time as he was drowning him, and the crouching Britannian’s face was contorted in a grimace as he held down his struggling victim, feeding him deeper into the mud pit that had spawned at his feet. When all that was left were the feet sticking up, Trennus stood, took a step back and gestured, sharply . . . and the ground stopped bubbling, and the intolerable sucking sound ceased, as well. “I really don’t like doing that,” Trennus muttered. “We should also be cautious about spilling blood here, Ehecatl. Killing of any sort can generate a power exchange that spirits will tap, but blood? Blood binds. And we don’t know entirely what we’re dealing with, not yet, anyway.”
Ehecatl looked at where the guard’s feet still stuck out of the ground. Swallowed. And replied, “Whatever you say.”
They signaled the others to come forwards now, and headed down into the tunnel that the guards had surrounded. It had been cut into the earth, centuries ago, widening an existing natural tube, and faced with huge limestone blocks, to stabilize the walls and ceiling. Adam swallowed, and took a couple of deep breaths before heading underground, following in Ehecatl’s silent, invisible wake.
After about eighty feet, Adam signaled a halt, and peered, cautiously, out of the tunnel and into a large, natural-looking cavern. Gray spirit-vision wavered, for the area beyond was lit by an uncanny, flickering blue-white light. There were five tangled stalagmite mounds that reac
hed up to the ceiling to grip the fingers of their dripping stalactite mates; the largest, in the center of the chamber, was only comprised of stalactites, reaching down like icicles to touch the surface of an irregularly-shaped pool. However, every wall in the cavern had been smoothed, and statues of various improbable creatures . . . probably Nahautl gods, or their predecessors . . . stood guard around the periphery of the chamber
In between the statues on the western side of the room, and dispersed evenly on either side of what looked like a low stone altar, were a dozen Tholberg coils, humming with power. Blue-white light coruscated up and down them, looking oddly liquid, but being fed by arcs of raw . . . lightning? . . . emanating from a huge figure behind the altar. For a moment, Adam thought it was another statue . . . until it moved, slightly, where it stood.
Half again as tall as the average human, the creature wore an elaborate headdress and armor made largely of what looked to be bones. It had huge, goggling, empty eye-pits, each the size of a human hand, an open, gaping mouth with fangs. Distantly, Adam realized that he could hear the Nahautl guards behind him, praying, fervently, in their native tongue.
Oh. We’re . . . so completely fucked. Adam backed up a step, running directly into Trennus as he did so, and then stopping dead.
A human voice rose above the hum of the machinery in the cavern. A chant, in Nahautl, that Adam couldn’t understand. “What’s he saying?” Kanmi hissed.
I’ll help. The words were a soft, feminine whisper in his mind, and Adam recoiled, instinctively, trying to fight the intrusion . . . and then his eyes widened as the words spoken in Nahautl, he suddenly understood as Hebrew. “Tlaloc! Lord of lightning, lord of water! You who make things sprout, hear our prayers! We have given you sustenance, you who have been starved of sacrifices for countless generations. We have given you the tears of children and the hearts of men to invigorate and strengthen you. And now, your servants are in danger—”
You have taken as much as you have given. The voice was silent, and also needed no translation. Adam swore and put his hands to his head against the searing pain there. You have given blood and flesh and tears, and you have taken my power unto you. As agreed. But now, the place of sacrifice to the south has fallen to the hands of the unsanctified. I grow weak. You bleed me like parasites . . . and so must blood feed me.
Sigrun managed to whisper, “I can see Tototl. He’s to the right of the altar. The arcs of power are going right to the Tholberg coils and missing him—”
“It’s following the path of least resistance,” Kanmi muttered, just barely audible above the crackling and hum of power in the cavern. “From the . . . god . . . to the Tholberg coils, through the air. It’s powerful enough to break down the air itself—I can smell the ionization already. Then it passes from the coils . . . hmm. I can see a copper bar in the ceiling. They’ve drilled down through the pyramid itself to present a conductive element for the power to transmit up to the mast on the roof. They’re not tapping the ley-lines for power here. They’re using them for stability.” The sorcerer’s voice was dazed.
“A load-bank,” Trennus agreed, softly. “Like putting copper bars in a bath of saltwater to discharge electricity into. Gods. I don’t even know what that would do.” The summoner stared at the room, his face bewildered. “Is he bound here? Is the god actually a prisoner?”
“Is that even possible?” Sigrun hissed.
“Maybe it’s a willing compact.”
Adam let the whispers fly past him. “Anyone have a visual on Xicohtencatl?” he asked, tersely. The magic part of the situation, he couldn’t do anything about. He could do something about the people in the equation.
“I do,” Ehecatl’s whisper drifted out of the dimness. “He’s on the other side of the stalactites. In the water. I’m going to move up and take him.” There was terror in the Nahautl’s voice, but determination, also.
“No, don’t, he’ll see you—” Sigrun hissed, but Ehecatl, invisible, had already slipped away.
Even as Ehecatl moved, however, the huge figure behind the altar stirred. Seemed to sniff the air. Intruders. The unsanctified have entered my temple. Give me their blood, child of my line, and I will overlook your folly and your transgressions. Feed me their hearts and their tears, and I will feed you freely, in turn.
“Oh, Baal, Astarte, and Tanis. This was not in my contract,” Kanmi said, in a sinking tone, as the high priest, Tototl turned from the altar, peering towards the darkness of the tunnel . . . and Xicohtencatl, who’d been in the water, suddenly rose up to walk on its surface, as if he were a bug skating on the fluid’s surface tension.
“You think we have any chance at diplomacy?” Adam asked Sigrun, feeling an odd surge of light-heartedness.
“I don’t give us any chance at all.” Sigrun said, flatly. “And running would be entirely useless. But you may certainly try your diplomacy!” She ducked back against the wall of the tunnel, as did Kanmi, Trennus, and Ehecatl, as blue-white arc of light slammed into the rock wall to their right. Mere lightning wouldn’t have hurt her, but who knew what else was in that spark of energy?
Adam cleared his throat, feeling numb. What in god’s name am I supposed to say? Release the god and come out with your hands up? “We’re here for Xicohtencatl and Tototl, for crimes against the Imperium,” he called. Specifics can damned well wait. “We’re not here for a fight. This can be resolved peacefully.” Right. Sure it can.
I will not permit you to take this priest of my line, or my bound servant. The voice was completely dismissive of Adam, but the god’s eyes focused now, not on him, but on Sigrun, to Adam’s side. A child of the northern gods, here? They dare send one of their servants into our lands? They have grown arrogant. The god paused. Arise, ahuizotl. Arise, and defend your master.
The ground to either side of the altar began to twist and distort, in much the same way Trennus had made the earth boil into mud outside, and small, twisted, bulging figures slightly smaller than wolves began to emerge from those brown pools. Whatever they were, they were sickeningly smooth, as if glistening birth-sacs encased them.
“I was born to fight lost battles.” If a voice could be described as ashen, Sigrun’s was. She raised her face, and white rune-wrought light emerged from her skin, turning her eyes into unreadable dark pools. “And today’s as good a day to die as any other. I couldn’t ask for better company.”
“All things considered, I’d like to pass on the dying part,” Kanmi retorted, and then he started incanting, rapidly.
____________________
And that was pretty much when all hell broke loose. Adam’s .45 was already in his hand, and he and Sigrun both ran to the right, heading for the cover of the stalagmite mound to the north. Kanmi and Trennus both darted to the south, to a different stalagmite, and the Eagle warriors, clearly uncertain, stepped forward in the tunnel, hesitating. “Either move up, or clear the area!” Sigrun called to them. “We’re not asking to fight one of your gods. You’re being asked to free him!” Another blue-white arc of energy broke loose from one of the Tholberg coils and slammed into the rock beside her . . . possibly directed by the god, or by Xicohtencatl, she couldn’t be sure which. Splinters of superheated rock flew through the air, and Sigrun dove to the ground, shielding her face with her left arm.
“We’re sure of that?’ Adam asked, as his fingers closed on her arm, pilling her further into cover behind the stalagmite mound.
“At the moment, the god looks like a captive to me. Figure it out later!”
Then Adam ducked out around her, trying to get a shot on Tototl or Xicohtencatl. He fired on the sorcerer, who was closer, and swore as he saw light flare in front of the man’s form, and heard the bullet ricochet off the rock behind him. “He’s got some sort of a shield in front of him, facing this direction. I’m going to need to a better angle.”
“Ehecatl’s going after him, too,” Sigrun noted, tersely, having caught a tiny flicker of movement that betrayed the Jaguar warrior’s position. “T
ry not to hit him. We only just got him back on the roster.” Damn it. Those creatures birthing themselves from the ground are almost free, and I can’t call any lightning without access to the sky . . . .
“He’s invisible. He gets in my line of fire, I’m not going to have any choice about hitting him.” Adam leaned out and tried another shot . . . and swore as the sorcerer caught sight of him, turned, and a whip of pure fire appeared in his hand, uncoiling and lashing directly for Adam. He barely ducked back in time. The lash hit the stalagmite mound in front of them, and the rock mound that sheltered them turned molten. Sigrun grabbed Adam and swung him, redirecting his movement, so that they both circled now, around to the north side of the mound. “I thought he was supposed to be limited in power,” Adam muttered under his breath. I’m taking this out of Eshmunazar’s hide. Assuming any of us live. “Think you can get to him, Sig?”
“Yes,” Sigrun said, her voice grim. “Can you cover me?”
“Can distract him, sure.” Adam leaned out, and opened fire again. This time, the sorcerer had to turn and spin his shield of force around to defend himself . . . and that was when Ehecatl tried to go into the water to attack the hovering sorcerer. All it took was one foot in contact with the water, and the Nahautl man screamed, his invisibility collapsing around his form, his body arcing and spasming.
___________________
Without even thinking, Sigrun leaped out from behind the stalagmites and flew forward, barely hearing Adam’s shout of “Sig! No!” behind her.
She caught Ehecatl under the arms and pain shot through her. Lightning, for her, was little more than a lover’s caress, or at least, what she imagined one would be like. An effervescent sensation against the skin and along the nerves, making her body sing, and then gone again. Sigrun got her arms securely under Ehecatl’s, and launched herself to the cover of a different stalagmite mound, this one closer to the altar, and dropped Ehecatl, whose body was still twitching, in its shelter. She crouched protectively over Ehecatl and called her spear back to her hands, from where she’d dropped it beside Adam. “Come on, Ehe, you’ve had worse,” she told the Nahautl warrior. “Get up. We need you.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 39